In many areas of the world and in many industrial processes, fluid streams are produced which contain entrained, suspended, dissolved or otherwise contained solids. The removal of these solids is frequently of considerable interest since the stream containing the solids may otherwise be useable for cleaning to remove additional quantities of solids; or in the case of liquids, may render the liquids useful for process applications, human consumption or the like. Further, many liquid streams, such as water, are desirably purified in applications such as the purification of seawater to produce potable water, the purification of industrial waste streams to produce useable water, and the like. The use of processes to remove dissolved, suspended and otherwise contained solids from fluid streams is desirable in many applications. The fluid streams, i.e., gas and liquid streams, are readily treated according to the process of the present invention to produce fluid streams having greatly reduced quantities of solids contained therein.
The use of ultrasonic energy for many purposes is well known. Ultrasonic energy is generally considered to comprise sound waves having a frequency above about 16 kHz. Sound waves at a lower frequency, i.e., down to as low as 15 kHz may also be used in the present invention if sufficient soundproofing is used to protect workers and others in the area and are referred to herein as ultrasonic waves even though such waves could also be referred to as sonic waves. Transducers for the production of such ultrasonic energy, i.e., sound waves, are well known and are commercially available in a wide variety of forms.
As discussed above, there exists a great need for an economical and efficient system and method for removing dissolved, entrained or suspended solids from fluid streams. A continuing effort has been directed to the development of more efficient methods for achieving this objective.